Talk:Inquiry education

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of the discussion was consensus against merging. Quasihuman | Talk 11:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

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I would vote against merging Inquiry_education with Inquiry-based_learning, because I believe there is a distinct difference between the two. "Inquiry-based learning" refers to a guided process where students are presented with a specific problem and then expected to ask questions about the best way to solve them. (Look at the examples cited in the article.) The Inquiry_education article, on the other hand, refers to to 'just' asking questions, rather than having students develop their own processes to solve them. My impression is that Inquiry_education would be happy to simply talk about "how to build strong bridges" whereas Inquiry-based_learning requires that they develop a process themselves (note the article specifically states "Inquiry learning emphasizes constructivist ideas of learning." tom (talk) 21:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

DONT MERGE I feel that the two articles are different in what they are actually talking about but the language is similar and they are linked. This article Inquiry-based learning is essentially (at the moment) focussed on Science Learning whreas This Inquiry Education article is looking at the philosophical questions posed by Postman and Weingartner around a curriculum of questions where the learner is encouraged to come up with questions that form the basis of the curriculum and to not just accept a societal view of what ought to or should be learnt. So the word inquiry is common to both and the articles might be cross referenced but they are not the same. BruceR1 (talk) 06:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

One line of this article presented a minor issue of debate for me, the line (in context of characteristics of inquiry-based students):

"No haste in answering questions."

While I definitely agree that such students should be confident in answering questions (which is covered by a later point "No fear of being wrong"), inquiry education strongly encourages students to carefully construct logical responses, in order to ensure understanding, and as a way to strengthen the students independent learning ability. I would propose some alteration of the above bullet to fit such a description. Braniac294 (talk) 01:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of added link in "See also" section

I added Marshall McLuhan as a link in the “see also” section. McLuhan is relevant to this page because Postman and Weingartner discuss his theories in the “inquiry education” chapter of Teaching as a Subversive Activity. They use the following of McLuahn’s ideas to communicate the way they would like readers to conceptualize the idea of inquiry learning:

• McLuahn’s “label-libel” idea, which states that we often “dismiss an idea by the expedience of naming it”. Postman and Weingartner detail the way McLuhan develops this point by explaining his “massage” metaphor. Massages are processes, and thus naming them does not really enhance our understanding of them. Postman and Weingartner draw on this theory to help readers understand the necessity of holding off on labelling inquiry learning; by not labelling it, they hope it can be processed and discussed, and therefore more fully appreciated.
• McLuhan’s “rearview-mirror metaphor” which problematizes the way we tend to frame new media in the context of what we already know. McLuhan argues that the rearview mirror approach is a “mistake” because new concepts (for example, the inquiry method) are actually completely new experiences. By recognizing the rearview mirror idea, Postman and Weingartner try to prevent inquiry learning from being misinterpreted as just another way for teachers to use the same norms as before --mainly, “‘covering content’” rather than learning more deeply.
• McLuahn’s idea that we don’t need storylines. McLuhan posits that storylines are distractors, and without them, people may become more involved in the process of learning. Postman and Weingartner use this idea to stress that students do not learn in linear or even remotely logical ways, and they imply that their method accounts for and encourages this fact whereas other teaching styles, which use syllabi and other methods to impose storylines, do not.

Gerard3333 (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

References